The Captain says that we were past the storm center when we got hit by two large waves in rapid succession which caused the ship to list at 20 to 25 degrees (that was at 12:45 p.m. on February 1st) and caused all the havoc. He also says that we plan to go back to Antarctica and spend our allotted three days there, and that he and the company are negotiating with future ports to squeeze the docking schedule so that we can do that. All of us are hoping for at least somewhat better weather for the crossing. I had an e-mail from Virginia gushing about their fabulous Antarctica experience and saying that they missed the hurricane. I sent back that I could tell her about it from personal experience!

I cannot repeat too often how greatly impressed I am with the Captain and all his crew and staff and how they handled the whole emergency. I feel perfectly safe on this ship as do the vast majority of the other passengers.

Meanwhile, we are still in Ushuaia, having off-loaded the injured yesterday evening, and are awaiting a shipment of crockery and glassware that’s being flown in from Buenos Aires. We’ll probably leave this evening headed south again. The weather today is lovely and Ushuaia is gorgeous with new snow on the mountains behind it. Since we are tendering in today, I decided to just stay aboard and admire the view. I suppose tonight we’ll be back to the (literally) bounding main.